Another goals list! I love reading these posts on other blogs, but personally, I love writing them because it motivates me so much! We have so many ideas for things to do in the house, but we’re also going to keep it realistic. During the course of the year, we’re going to have a 3 year old and a 1 year old living here, so I’m sure it’ll be crazy, but I’m also looking forward to finding our new groove in life as a family of 4 (6! with doggies).

While I’d love to say the KITCHEN was number 1 on my list, it’s sadly not going to happen this year. Our budget won’t accommodate it this year, but hopefully soon. Our life has taken some interesting turns that we didn’t originally plan for (me not earning a paycheck anymore) so we have to alter our game plan a bit. Mainly though, we’re trying to take advantage of the unique situation we have of us ALL being home, and David being able to work from anywhere. So we’re really eyeing up some travel and vacations this year while we all have this time together and before Connor heads off to school in a few years. Family time is really the priority this year 🙂

But, while family time is the priority, we couldn’t get through this year without some home project fun. It’s a great outlet for David and I to dream, design, and execute all these projects around the house together.

So this year, we’re going to focus on some smaller projects, ones that we didn’t finish last year, and also maybe planning for a bigger one next year!

Built ins

Ok, so this is a carryover from our 2018 home projects lists. Guilty. BUT, we’ve really been excited about getting these done. We have the base cabinets installed and painted. We have the TV bought and mounted on the wall. We’ve planned out where the shelving will be.

Now, I’m just waiting on some warmer and nicer weather to take all of the cabinet doors and counter top outside to paint using our new paint sprayer. Rolling cabinet doors is no joke (we did our entire SC kitchen this way!), so I’m really looking forward to getting a super smooth finish with the paint sprayer.

Once that’s all finished and we’ll finalize the shelving plans and buy/cut/paint all of that wood. I’ve also been on the hunt for the perfect overhead lighting (or library sconces as I’ve realized they’re called.

Family Room Curtains

Ok, also a carryover from 2018. BUT. I’m totally adding it to this list, because I FINALLY finished them. In 2019. So it totally counts. More details coming soon, so that I can share what a headache these have been for me (2 years in the making!).

Mini Dining Room Makeover

Last year when I was pregnant with Layla, Connor went to his Grandparent’s house one weekend, and David was doing a lot of molding work in Layla’s nursery that didn’t really involve me too much. So I took advantage of that free time to do a mini makeover on our kitchen. It wasn’t much work but it made the WORLD of a difference to me. I still have to share this project, but it really inspired me to tackle a mini makeover on our poop colored dining room this year. I’m excited, I have a dark, moody green/blue in mind and can’t wait to experiment with it!

Staircase/Foyer Completion

So I think this will probably be the only flooring project we aim to do this year. The hallway floor upstairs is done, and the foyer flooring is done, so the ugly carpeting connecting the two areas on the stairs has GOT TO GO. We think it’s going to be a decent project to install the wood treads and risers so we’re trying to not get too ambitious. We’ll see what surprises it has in store for us.

Also, in the foyer area, I’m brainstorming some guest coat hooks and a bench setup to make it a bit more visitor friendly. Although, I feel like, that no matter what system you have in place, people tend to come in and just set stuff down in your kitchen anyway haha.

Master Closet/Bathroom Planning

This one is going to be our stretch this year. The way our house is laid out, calls for some unused space behind our master closet walls. Long term, we were hoping to reconfigure it to relocate the master closet to make our master bathroom bigger. It was always something we envisioned doing once the kids were a lot older, but the more we talk about it, the more we want to treat ourselves and give ourselves a “retreat”. Because, really, these younger years are when you need a retreat place the most. We’ve done so many projects for them, their bedrooms and the playroom, that we really want to do something that is 100% for us. And we want the time to enjoy it before we’re old haha.

It’s hard to explain the whole thing without going into diagrams, design, and floor plans, but I’ll be explaining a lot more in an upcoming blog post. The awesome thing about it though, is that we were chatting with our neighbors (who have the same style house as us, just backwards) about this idea and they had already done it! Here we were, thinking we were brilliant. So, we still need to tour their place and take a bunch of pictures, but it will be so cool to see it already completed and how maybe we might want to do it differently.

Overall, we just want to come up with a plan, design, and get some estimates to see what this kind of projects is going to run us.

Garage Organization

This is a MUST for my sanity. Literally half of the garage looks awful, and everything is just thrown in there. We’re really hoping when the weather gets better, that we can just have a fun weekend outside in the driveway with the kids while purging and tackling this reorganization. We’ll see. But I’m determined to get this cleaned up and less hectic.

That is a title of a blog post that I never, ever, ever thought I would be writing. It’s true. I remember just about 4 years ago, talking to a co-worker about his wife who stays home with their children. I specifically remember saying “that’s so great that she does that, but I could never do it.” Little did I know, that that would be my life not too long after.

So I had most of this post written a few weeks before Layla made her appearance… but I slacked on taking some pictures for it. Blah blah blah. Well, we’re back! I must say getting this post up and chatting with David about some things around the house, we are kind of itching to get another project done… maybe we’ll pick something off of this list?! Anyways, to be continued. But enjoy this project update post… and maybe we’ll be able to knock something else off!

We went over a month without blogging, which was definitely not the plan. Life got in the way, we were having so much holiday fun, visiting friends and family, and even taking a trip back down to Charleston, SC (I even stopped by our old house!… yes, the door was still yellow!) Here’s a beautiful shot from before we moved out because the one I sneaked and posted on Instagram of it when we were there was total CRAP. BUT, it did spark an interesting little conversation about whether or not you would go inside one of your old houses, whether asking to go in yourself, or being invited. What would you do? I was too scared!

We hope you all had a wonderful holiday! We had some good quality family time over the past few days and spent today relaxing and enjoying some quiet time at home.

Christmas with a little one gives it a whole new meaning, and this was our favorite Christmas ever. Even though Connor didn’t really understand what was going on, it was awesome to see his eyes light up with the wrapping paper everywhere and the joy of discovering a new toy!

You may have noticed on our house needs/wants list that we specifically spelled out that we did not want a bi-level nor split-level. I grew up in a beautiful bi-level. My parents got the house built and we moved in when I was 8 years old. I remember my parents telling us about it before we moved in, saying that the kitchen was going to be upstairs, and we were so confused. What if we’re downstairs watching TV and need a glass of water? We have to go ALL THE WAY upstairs to get it?? Yes. Yes you do. It’s not a big deal. And it wasn’t. It didn’t really phase me after that.

I guess should define “bi-level” for those who are not familiar. A bi-level home is a home that you usually enter the front door and have the option to immediately walk upstairs or downstairs. The kitchen and main living areas are usually upstairs, and a family room is usually downstairs. Related, a split-level is similar, but has multiple levels and half floors throughout the house.

So when David and I were house shopping for our first house in Maryland, we toured a ton of houses, but eventually settled on a really cute bi-level in an awesome neighborhood. It wasn’t weird to me that the kitchen was upstairs because that’s what I had grown up with. Granted, the kitchen was small, but it was so open and incorporated with both the dining room and living room, that you didn’t really notice.

You’ll probably hear us say this a lot when referring to our current Delaware home. It’s our forever home. After relocating for our jobs 3 times, it was time to settle down in one spot and start our family.

Back when we had our first house in Maryland, I had always had a vision that when we finally settled down long term we would be building our dream home. Like, the type that you ride around town/the country side, find a beautiful piece of land, locate an architect and builder, come up with blue prints, and have this house personalized and built to every single desire and preference. Something like this:

Image courtesy of houseplans.com

Sounds amazing right? Also sounds friggin expensive. My naive first time home buyer self didn’t understand the dollar signs that went along with my ideas.

Soooo… we decided to start a blog. ::insert sheepish look here:: I’m both super proud and also kind of embarrassed. This has been so much fun to setup and we have so many ideas to get started on, however, I also feel like some kind of fraud. People been telling me for years that I needed to start one. I read about 10 of my favorite home blogs religiously everyday. But to write our own? It just doesn’t feel right. I don’t feel like I’m creative/entertaining/interesting/innovative (the list goes on) enough to do this.

But here we are. And I’m so excited to be doing it. I’m looking most forward to getting all of our projects in one spot and telling some stories that our Facebook before and after albums aren’t able to do. I feel like we’ve done so little and so much when it comes to home stuff. And that’s what it’ll mostly be about, our journey so far in home DIY, decor, and renovations… and all that is to come in the future with this “forever” home that we’ve started to finally settle down in. But we also plan to just blog about things going on in our lives and other hobbies every once in a while.